trying to make sense out of injustice

a rascist slap in the face

I’m troubled by someone who really took me by surprise a couple of days ago and feel the need to write about it. There is a woman that I followed at the time on Twitter and also befriended on Facebook who really shocked me. It was very late last night or early morning, around 1 am, and i was doing a quick browse for any good news I could find, especially with regards to Palestine’s bid for statehood status. I found words from someone about the Troy Davis execution and couldn’t believe it!

It’s one thing to express sadness over the dreadful events leading to this death, it was tragic, it could have and should have been avoided, and i have little doubt that if he had been a white middle class male he would not have been convicted. In no way am I trying to minimize this dreadful event. However, this person chose to finally reveal her true colors big time! She wrote, and I quote “All lazy people are white people, too. All those trashy Welfare and food stamp receiving white people living in trailer parks, driving rust bucket pickups with gun racks, Confederate flag front license plates and NASCAR stickers with seven kids who never get baths are invisible to them because it defuses this stereotype. – white people smell so bad.” and also other diatribes about how due to the execution that she now, and again, I quote “Hates all whites, and has no trust in any of them” and a couple of other tweets that have since been removed.

Needless to say, since this person had never posted anything even remotely resembling this before that I had seen, I was SCHOCKED!! I send her messages trying to ask her to explain what she meant, was she quoting someone, or what in the hell was going on, but received no response, now I can believe that her silence could have been due to the fact that I was white. Since then I have also found that others had accused her of grievous racism on twitter earlier.

I understand the anger, but if you stop to think about it, how is this helping the situation? I decided to take a look at the problem.

In his blog Modern Racism and It’s Psychological Effects on Society, Neil Brick MA Ed describes racism like this and I quote;
“Racism is defined as an individual’s discriminatory behavior and prejudicial attitude toward people of a certain race or institutional practices (whether motivated by prejudice or not) that subordinate a certain race’s people. (Myers, 1993) Subtle prejudice may be defined as exaggerating ethnic differences, rejecting minorities for supposed non-racial reasons and feeling less admiration and affection for minorities. I will define modern racism as a subtle form of prejudice. I define it as modern because though some overt forms of racism appear to be on the decline (Myers, 1993) other more subtle forms still exist. Subtle forms entail a subconscious attitude that the holder may be fully unaware of, or one that is known and repressed, and yet influences their thoughts and behaviour. This attitude may become more conscious through education and self-exploration.”

He continues saying that modern racism is becoming more subtle, less about overt actions and more about underlying attitude. As such it is more difficult to see but more severe. No longer are people burning crosses on the front lawn, but the concept of equal employment, for example, is merely that, a concept. We create a view of being politically correct while continuing the same racist attitudes, a polite form of racism, if you will.
Racism has also become scientifically measurable. Again quoting Myers “One method which he quotes is to show a video to a group of white people containing an argument during which a white man lightly shoves a black man. Only 13% of those polled considered that an act of violence, however, if the roles were reversed then 73% found it objectionable and that the black man was acting violently.”

For the purposes of this discussion, I should also point out that I am speaking of the more private forms of racism, the institutionalized forms, that which we see in commercial advertising and media are a different issue. Of course they feed the concepts that racial stereotypes are based upon, and in many ways allow it or even encourage its continuance.

It is our tunnel vision, our inability to broaden our cultural perspective that stands most in the way of an equal multicultural society. Of course racism, and its’ opposite, are learned. To assume otherwise is as foolish as it is unconstructive. The basis of racism is fear, fear of the unknown, fear of cultural or lingual differences, and from the misunderstandings that come from the fear and inaction. It’s obvious to me that to overcome that type of fear takes growth in one’s own self-confidence.
Myers also raises the interesting question, is modern racism an act of self ego defence of those who are unaware of their own insecurities or of the effect of such beliefs and behaviours on the common psyche? The effects of being bullied by your peers for whatever reason are very well documented, and I won’t go into them in this article, but suffice it to say that the use of the word “boy” is fine when describing a child, but the word “nigger” as a label is never acceptable for use by Caucasians.

Having said all that, is ranting any help at all? There is an understandable urge for a primal scream when confronted with something as obvious and totally unacceptable as Troy Davis’ execution – but does that justify succumbing to racist slurs?It is this writers humble opinion that such indulgence is NEVER justified. I do understand and have said many times that the American justice system is basically racist, but lashing out the way she did proves, at least to me, that she is a racist as well.

You can of course, dear reader, agree or disagree, mind you I would love your comments, and I thank you for reading.